Blogs

A blog is a Web site where information is displayed in chronological posts. Each section of information is displayed as if written in a daily journal. Readers can post comments and questions at the end of each entry.

Teachers could use blogs to post homework assignments, writing prompts, and reading material. Students could post original writings and ideas in their own blogs.

Blogs can be public or private. The privacy settings vary between individual programs but can be very advanced (I have seen private blogs where some posts are only made visible to a select group of blog subscribers; this feature is not yet available in Blogger or WordPress).

Blogs usually have one author, but can have multiple authors. For classroom use, I suggest that each student have her own blog and use a reader to bring other student's blogs into one screen.

I recommend the free blogs available at Blogger or WordPress. The advantage of Blogger is that it is Google-based and will not require any new accounts. Blogger will allow you to alter the date of your entries. Be aware that students could use this advantage to pre-date entries to meet an expired due date.

You can show your blog postings right on your Web site. The entries will be automatically updated as you post new entries to your blog.

Example: